Subject: Hmm. This file is not an ASCII file. Transmission aborted !!!

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 14:19:09 -0500 (EST)

Guys, I had requested some information from the ClariNet service by sending a
empty mail to [email-masked]. I got back this reply. But it is truncated with
the message
Hmm.  This file is not an ASCII file.  Transmission aborted

I have never seen this message before. Can anyone tell me where this message
is coming from?

Thanks,
--Vikas

P.S.: I am attaching the entire message reply I got. Please note the last line
of this email.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 11:05:03 -0800 (PST)
From: ClariNet AutoReply <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: 

Thanks for inquiring about ClariNet and our electronic newspaper
service for the Internet and USENET.

This reply comes to you from an automatic mailserver. We've included
general information on ClariNet below. If you want more information,
there are a number of ways to get it. To ask a specific question of
one of our sales staff, send e-mail to [email-masked]. You can do
that by simply replying to this message. Additional contact methods
are listed below.

To get more information automatically, we suggest you browse our WWW
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you can use our ftp server at ftp.clari.net, or, if you only have
e-mail, you can send an e-mail message to [email-masked] to talk
to our automatic mail server. Leaving the message screen blank will
get you a directory of the info files, or you can put one of the
following popular filenames in the Subject: line of your message to
receive it.

iap_pricing             ClariNet e.News prices for Internet Access Providers
educational_pricing     ClariNet e.News prices for educational institutions
general_pricing         General ClariNet e.News price information
quick_reference         The Quick Reference List of ClariNet e.News newsgroups
terms                   ClariNet General Terms and Conditions

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Hmm.  This file is not an ASCII file.  Transmission aborted.

---

From: [email-masked] (Orjan Johansen)
Date: 21 Jan 1997 23:21:18 GMT

[Posted to comp.mail.pine and mailed to the original poster as well as 
to the Clarinet postmaster.]

>I have never seen this message before. Can anyone tell me where this message
[snip]
>Hmm.  This file is not an ASCII file.  Transmission aborted.

My guess is that the word there is 'Café'. The 'é' (e with accent)
character is an 8-bit character which is not in standard ASCII.

Some program which that message passed through is still living in the
stone age when text meant 7-bit ASCII.

I tried to test by sending an empty message to [email-masked] myself,
and my reply contains the same error. So I assume the error is somewhere
at Clarinet.

Greetings,
Ørjan.